Can anyone tell me who in Naples that makes a Neapolitan pizza Anthony is trying to emulate? Or, asked a somewhat different way, is his pizza really a Neapolitan pizza?

Peter

Peter - he has said in some interviews that he makes pizza better than anyone in Naples. His pizza is Neapolitan in concept, but takes more cues from strict bread making (levain, etc). The Italians would balk at the size of the outer rim, equating it to a loaf of bread. But that is the approach he wants, and I believe it is deliberate.

John, there was no outside crisp at all when you press the rim even right out of the oven. It was just really soft. Usually, there would be a very thin crisp shell right of the oven but his pie did not have that characteristic. I also noticed that since the rims were so massive, they were bordering on being underbaked.

Somewhere along the way, I started to use the expression "natural poolish", to mean a naturally leavened mixture of equal weights of flour and water. Moreover, the amount of natural poolish had to be fairly substantial, such as what one might use to make bread, and in excess of what Marco recommended for pizza dough, which was up to 5% of the formula water.

Perhaps the better question I should have asked is whether Anthony used, and is now using, a natural poolish, or some other natural preferment, as opposed to an amount that would serve only as a leavening agent along the lines that Marco advocated. If the answer is the former, that might help explain the characteristics of the crust that Marlon was served in his visit to UPN.

None of this is to impugn anything that Anthony has been doing. He always seemed to march to the beat of a different drummer, or as Henry David Thoreau of nearby Concord, MA once said: "If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away."

John, there was no outside crisp at all when you press the rim even right out of the oven. It was just really soft. Usually, there would be a very thin crisp shell right of the oven but his pie did not have that characteristic. I also noticed that since the rims were so massive, they were bordering on being underbaked.

That is pretty interesting. I wonder if the oven temp is lower than normal.

Somewhere along the way, I started to use the expression "natural poolish", to mean a naturally leavened mixture of equal weights of flour and water. Moreover, the amount of natural poolish had to be fairly substantial, such as what one might use to make bread, and in excess of what Marco recommended for pizza dough, which was up to 5% of the formula water.

Perhaps the better question I should have asked is whether Anthony used, and is now using, a natural poolish, or some other natural preferment, as opposed to an amount that would serve only as a leavening agent along the lines that Marco advocated. If the answer is the former, that might help explain the characteristics of the crust that Marlon was served in his visit to UPN.

None of this is to impugn anything that Anthony has been doing. He always seemed to march to the beat of a different drummer, or as Henry David Thoreau of nearby Concord, MA once said: "If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away."

Peter

Peter - I remember reading in an interview that was done within the last few months that Anthony actually referred to his "starter" and getting the "starter" going. From the Naturally Risen videos, one can easily assume that he is using a levain amount somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30% of flour, which corresponds to a bread workflow. Definitely a different beat from what they play in Naples!

That is pretty interesting. I wonder if the oven temp is lower than normal.

John

Good point. Or if he is pulling his pies more quickly than he was doing in NYC?

The cornicione on his pies in my three UPN EV visits were indeed always quite large (if I am not mistaken I recall Anthony's doughball weight to be around 10oz in those days?), but his cooking times in the Acunto were often closer to the 2:00 mark.

Peter - I remember reading in an interview that was done within the last few months that Anthony actually referred to his "starter" and getting the "starter" going. From the Naturally Risen videos, one can easily assume that he is using a levain amount somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30% of flour, which corresponds to a bread workflow. Definitely a different beat from what they play in Naples!